How lucky Israelis are that in the Jewish state politics is substantive, straightforward, serious, and scrupulous...

As holiday-weary Israelis wonder whether they will ever be productive again,
Americans are preparing to watch their presidential candidates sweat. Just as
Tishrei is holiday-saturation month for Jews, every four years October is debate
month in American presidential politics. Tonight Mitt Romney and Barack Obama
will debate domestic policy in Colorado. On October 11, their vice presidential
running mates, Paul Ryan and Joe Biden, will debate in Kentucky. On October 16,
voters at a town meeting in New York will question the two presidential
candidates about any issues and on October 22 – two weeks before Election Day –
Obama and Romney will debate foreign policy in Florida.

These debates –
which are more like side-by-side press conferences with some exchanges – are
usually the political equivalent of military service: long bouts of boredom
punctuated by bursts of melodrama. Usually, they reinforce media narratives and
voter impressions. But they have sometimes changed outcomes, particularly in
1980, when Ronald Reagan’s aw shucks, “there you go again” dismissal of
president Jimmy Carter’s attacks triggered a Reagan surge – and the largest last
minute switch in poll results since polling began in the 1930s.

Treating
history as an authoritative tarot card rather than a subtle source of wisdom,
Mitt Romney’s supporters have been touting that 10-point swing as proof that the
Republicans will win. The 1980 moment appeals more broadly to Republicans as
indication that a gaffe-prone, ridiculed, seemingly out-of-touch former governor
can defeat an earnest Democratic incumbent afflicted by a sagging economy,
Middle East troubles, and accusations that the twin pillars of his foreign
policy are appeasement and apology, not power and pride.

The 1980 debate
should sober Obama and buoy Romney. In his recent book, The Candidate: What It
Takes to Win – and Hold – the White House, Prof. Samuel Popkin, an occasional
Democratic campaign adviser, recalls his failure coaching Carter in 1980.
Playing Reagan in debate “prep,” Popkin echoed the Republican’s devastating
anti-Carter criticisms.

Popkin describes the kind of careful criticism
Romney should launch against Obama, knowing that if the challenger is too
aggressive he looks angry and insolent, but if he is too deferential he seems
weak and intimidated.

Reagan, Popkin writes, “resorted to more subtle,
coded criticisms that were harder to defend against. He appeared respectful of
the office and the president, suggesting that Carter was hamstrung by defeatist
Democrats in Congress.” This approach forced Carter to rebut the premise – and
plaintively claim he was strong – or the conclusion – by insisting Democrats
were not defeatists. “Contesting one point left him tacitly conceding the
other,” Popkin writes.

Obama’s caveat is in Carter’s
reaction.

Offended and embarrassed by the criticism, Carter ended the
session after 11 minutes. Popkin as Reagan had pierced Carter’s “presidential
aura,” unnerving everyone in the room. Trying to dispel the tension, Carter’s
chief domestic policy adviser, Stuart Eizenstat, himself Jewish, resorted to
ethnic humor by pointing to Popkin and joking, “You didn’t know governor Reagan
was Jewish, did you?” Popkin, who quickly replied “Well, Governor Reagan is from
Hollywood,” realized that many of Carter’s people, including the aggrieved
president, were unfamiliar with Reagan’s attacks because the majesty of the
presidency insulated Carter from serious criticism or serious study of his
challenger.

Of course, in an ideal world the debates would emphasize
issue flashpoints not gaffe-hunting. In Denver, Romney should, Reagan-style,
subtly question Obama as to when he, as president, will take responsibility for
the anemic recovery and lingering unemployment rather than scapegoating his
predecessor. At Hofstra University, Romney should ask Obama to explain to the
voters present and the American people how his increasing reliance on the heavy
hand of federal regulations and big government does not reflect doubt in the
traditional invisible hand of individual entrepreneurial Americans and the
markets themselves.

And in Boca Raton, Romney should prod Obama on the
Arab Spring, asking him at what point he would concede that his policy failed
rather than simply dismissing the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the
murder of American diplomats in Libya, and other Obama-orchestrated disasters as
“bumps in the road.” In response, Obama should emphasize his successes in
halting the economic free-fall, his faith in American ingenuity guided by the
government’s occasional, competent, and gentle helping hand, and his muscular
defense of American interests in hunting down Osama bin Laden, boosting troops
in Afghanistan, and reprimanding Egypt’s president for delays in defending
America’s Cairo embassy.

Meanwhile, reporters and voters should push both
candidates to explain what sacrifices they will demand from Americans, where
they will deviate from their party’s orthodoxy, how they will end partisanship,
and what bold solutions they have to American debt, demoralization and
decline.

While such substantive exchanges would allow Americans to weigh
the candidates’ dueling philosophies and records, it is more likely that the
debates’ verdict will pivot around some theatrical moment. Since televised
presidential debates began in 1960, when John Kennedy’s aristocratic calm
contrasted with Richard Nixon’s sweaty, herky-jerky intensity, style has usually
upstaged substance in debate reporting and debate perceptions.

It is too
easy just to blame the press – although broadcasters and reporters will be
seeking “gotcha” moments when a candidate stumbles and “grand slams” when a
candidate dominates. Moreover, American voters respond more to debate theatrics
than polemics. The mass reaction reflects one of the realities of modern
leadership, which too many academics ignore and editorialists lament: image
rules, style counts, a successful president or prime minister must communicate
effectively not just administer smoothly.

This season, as the American
campaign peaks and the silliness surges, it will be easy to mock American
politics. How lucky Israelis are that in the Jewish state politics is
substantive, straightforward, serious, and scrupulous...

The writer is
Professor of History at McGill University and a Shalom Hartman Research Fellow
in Jerusalem. The author of Why Moderates Make the Best Presidents: George
Washington to Barack Obama, his next book, Moynihan’s Moment: America’s Fight
Against Zionism as Racism will be published by Oxford University Press in the
fall.

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